2016

Calm waters

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We did a large variety of things today, although none of them was as physically draining as our boat day or really any of our snorkeling days.

In the morning we did a beach cleanup on the windward side of the island and assessed what kind of trash is most likely to make it onto the beach. Things I learned: Styrofoam is the worst, don’t give children toys, and the ocean is full of trash even in pristine environments like this one.

In the afternoon we went to the back reef that is through the mangroves of death on the other side of the island. The mangroves weren’t as buggy as they usually are so we got lucky. We measured live coral coverage of one coral colony on the back reef and then swum around and looked at things.

Adrienne showed us black band disease and some baby Acropora cervicornis. I also saw a few flamingo tongues and I picked one up and saw its mantle retract to reveal the white shell underneath.

At night we did a night snorkel. I sadly missed seeing the Caribbean reef squid, but I did get to see a bunch of very odd fish. Mostly it was just difficult to stay out of everyone’s way with all the flippers and wave energy.

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Marine debris cleanup, Day 13

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For the first half of the day, we cleaned up the marine debris on the windward side of Middle Caye and then analyzed the composition of the trash. It turns out that 50% of the trash we collected was plastic by mass, 21% was styrofoam, 14% was rope, and 15% was other. However, we collected nearly the same volume of styrofoam as plastic, which was something I did not predict. We found many plastic bottles and bottle caps, as well as personal toiletries and medicine containers. The amount of Styrofoam was insane. A large majority of humans and our societies are built around consumption and waste, so much so that it doesn’t faze us anymore to throw something away. Ella brought up a good point today that though there are grassroots movements away from waste and towards reusable bags and recycling, people still don’t see the conflict in bringing a reusable bag to the grocery store and filling it up with water bottles and packaged foods.

After that project, we listened to lectures and then went to another backreef to measure a coral colony in three dimensions. I didn’t find it particularly fun, because the water was warm, the sky was cloudy, and there were a lot of sediments in the water. After dinner we went night snorkeling, which was again very cool. However, my mask kept fogging up and I felt claustrophobic in the water surrounded by people. We saw a slipper lobster, and two spiny lobsters, as well as several fish. The stony coral polyps were also extended on the Orbicella annularis and O. faveolata, species in which the polyps are usually retracted during the day.

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The area near our dorms. We didn’t clean up this side of the island, but you can see the amount of stuff that just washes up onshore.
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More marine debris, located near the coral graveyard.
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Day 13: Beach Cleaning and Night Diving

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Today we did a joint beach cleanup-marine debris study. We collected over 90 pounds of garbage in an hour, and only touched a tiny section of the island. The amount of garbage that covered the beaches was truly horrifying. The beach is made up of coral skeletons, and from afar it was looked relatively pristine. However, weathered Styrofoam looks surprisingly similar to coral, and in some spots the beach was nearly half Styrofoam. Plastic bags are generally the target of anti-pollution campaigns, so I was very surprised that we found very few. Instead, we found large amounts of Styrofoam, countless bottle caps, shoes, toothbrushes, and even a few syringes and injection vials. When we returned, we learned that they do a beach cleanup every week, so everything we had collected had washed up less than a week ago. If hundreds of pounds of garbage are washing up on this tiny, uninhabited island weekly I can only imagine how much worse the situation is in other areas. IMG_3898

We couldn’t possibly go 2 days without our quadrats, so we took them out to the back reef to take 3-dimensional data on stony coral coverage. The class last year took the same measurements on the same colonies, so it will interesting to see how the colonies have changed in the past year. While on the back reef, I saw several species of red algae, including Tubular thicket algae and Amphiroa fragilissima. I also found something that looked like red algae, but it was yellow with pinkish tips. I still haven’t seen a tunicate.

DSCN1503After dinner, we had a very interesting presentation by the Belize Fisheries Department. Then, we went on a night dive. I was so surprised how different it felt to snorkel without in the dark. The entire reef felt more calm, and we saw lots of species that we never see during the day. Tomorrow we are doing “aquatic jazz.” Can’t wait to see what’s in store for us 🙂

2016

Talking Trash

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Today was really cool because we brought a clear conservation viewpoint into our projects. In the morning, we created a project about marine debris. We had a dual purpose in this: beach clean-up and exploring the composition of marine debris on the windward side of the island.

In total, we picked up 41.22 kg of debris in an hour, and we barely scratched the surface of the trash that was washed up on the shore. By mass, almost 50% of the trash was plastics, but styrofoam also made up a large proportion of the debris picked up. Overall, the sheer amount marine debris found is quite disturbing, especially knowing that much of it could come from landfills.

After lunch, we braved the mosquito mangroves to explore another part of the back reef. Here, each group of two used quadrats to measure a single coral colony that had also been measured the year before. Hopefully we will be able to use these measurements to determine whether or not the colonies have been growing over the past year.

Middle Caye
Middle Caye

In terms of piscivorous fish, I saw a few identifiable species today. Most of these were seen during our night snorkel, which was super fun! Some species included squirrelfish, a tarpon, a porgy, and an invasive lionfish (whose venomous spines I almost swam right into). Overall, the night swim was probably my favorite snorkeling activity so far!

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Day 13

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As per usual, actually engaging with an issue gave us perspective today. The issue was marine debris. Yesterday, Stephanie gave us a briefing on the topic. It was a great overview of the many different ways in which trash enters the marine system, persists in the system, and is ultimately washed up onto shores across the globe. In the morning, we conducted an experiment around a beach clean up. Ultimately, we asked a question regarding the composition of trash in terms of its material. As we expected, the trash was dominated by plastics by weight and Styrofoam by volume.

What was staggering was just how little of a dent we made in just the four sites that we picked. Add to that the entirety of the island, the entirety of Belize, and then all of the other countries. The scale is just too large to comprehend.

While collecting trash, I noticed that there were so many dried up Gorgonia ventalina individuals. All of this continues to build up my thought that this species is the dominant soft coral on the Glover’s Reef Atoll.

The best part of the day, however, was the night snorkeling trip that we did. It was very logistically difficult due to the dark, the close proximity of the entire group, and the higher levels of suspended sediment. Nonetheless, the dive was great. The community composition was really different. I also saw a slipper lobster!

Tomorrow marks our last full day. I can’t really imagine going to back to the real world and Rice.

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Day 13: Marine debris and mangroves

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Sunrise on Middle Caye

The project of the morning consisted of quantifying the marine debris that was washed up on the windward side of Middle Caye. At four sites we measured the amount of trash that the 14 of us could collect in 15 minutes. By weight, 50% of the debris that we gathered was plastic and another 21% was Styrofoam. 14% was rope and 15% was glass, rubber, or other materials. Overall we collected 41.22 kg of debris in one hour, which is especially significant because the shore gets cleaned every week. The amount of debris that we collected on a small portion of this small island far away from the shore was staggering.

In the afternoon we ventured through a stand of mangroves to the leeward side of the island to the back reef. We were there to collect data on coral colonies that the EBIO 319 students measured last year, but we were also able to explore the area. The large quantity of sand on the back reef made it a good place to find green algae. Most of the Caulerpa that I saw were either Caulerpa cupressoides (cactus tree algae) or C. urvilleana. The Caulerpa were often found near Penicillus capitatus and Udotea flabellum. I also saw a few examples of Dictyosphaeria cavernosa (green bubble algae) on corals and in sea grass.

While we were collecting debris I noticed a fair amount of filamentous algae on the rocks along the shore. I’m not sure whether they were from the Cladophoraceae or Derbesiaceae family. Some of them might have been Rhizoclonium riparium.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I found Caulerpa racemosa (green grape algae) on the windward back reef that we visited. The algae were in very shallow water right behind the reef crest. I also have seen examples of Acetabularia calyculus (mermaid’s wine glass) in the shallow water off of the dock.

Caulerpa racemosa on the back reef at Middle Caye
Caulerpa racemosa (green grape algae), turf algae, Halimeda, and brown algae on the back reef at Middle Caye
Acetabularia
Acetabularia calyculus (mermaid’s wine glass)
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It Ends With a Night Snorkel

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Our morning activity today was sobering. Our task was to design an experiment that would answer some question about marine debris. We chose to analyze the composition of the trash washed ashore on  the windward side of this island, Middle Caye. Simply, we would collect refuse and sort it to find out the percent by weight of each kind of material (plastic, foam, etc). What lay before us was hundreds and thousands of scraps littering the pristine rocky beach. We only searched for one hour, but we accumulate, as a group of fourteen, more than ninety pounds of debris. The majority of the volume was styrofoam and hard plastic, with total plastic weighing more than double the total styrofoam (naturally). We learned from the staff here that this type of cleanup is a weekly occurrence, which made out efforts seem like casually shoveling your driveway in the middle of a blizzard. Sobering.

Among the styrofoam debris, some of my classmates collected some spongy objects that actually tuned out to be the siliceous skeletons of actual sea sponges! PSA: Dead sponges do not float, or at least the two or three we collected alongside the garbage.

The afternoon passed quickly with another quadrat survey of coral cover. After dinner we heard a bad-ass lecture from the fisheries managers who regaled us with the ins and outs of their job including threats from fisherman, bribes, and what seemed like the closest things to espionage in the conservation business.

After that we did a night snorkel which represented the first time I’d ever been in the ocean after sundown. I has always heard this was primetime for shark activity, although we didn’t see any near the patch reef we visited. On the list of things we spotted at night were: a cute little slipper lobster, a yellow stingray, many sea cucumbers, a nassau grouper, and corals with their tentacles extended! I expected to be terrified by the abyssal darkness, but instead I was intrigued by what I was seeing and surprised by the variety of nocturnal sea creatures. Just like the night hike at Las Cuevas, the night snorkel at Glover’s taught me to appreciate the daily cycles of activity in any ecosystem.

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Day 13: A Glimmer in the Debris

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The life of a TFB must be tough. I’m always hearing news of how this ecosystem has fallen to invasive species, or how this reef has had 90% mortality in the past year. Today, we cleaned up a short segment of beach of any trash we could find and quantifying our findings into useful data for future reference. But during collection, we all couldn’t expect the sheer volume and weight such a job carries. It’s like fighting a losing battle, because when you dig up a handful of plastics, you only find more before you. As a fourteen-man team, we collected a total of about 40 kg of trash, mostly in plastics and Styrofoam in just an hour.

 

Our other task was to quantify the percent area of living corals in an assigned patch reef from last year, and the results only show insignificant live coral cover and significant numbers of dead coral. It’s easy to get emotions down at times like this, given the first world comforts we’ve sacrificed. I wonder how other biologists, especially those that work in conservation, find hope and keep their heads up in what they do.

 

No new jellyfish were spotted today, other than the same upside down Cassiopea jellies. I’m starting to wonder if they even occur in the environments of an atoll regularly, and to be honest, it’s a bit frustrating. But I have hopes that our last day tomorrow will give rise to something interesting.

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The Professor Who Cried Mosquito

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Ocean view of “mangroves of death.”

It sure is one thing to learn about conservation, but seeing it in action is a whole other story. And this morning’s experiment was really all about doing conservation. After learning about marine debris, we spent the morning on a task that was part data collection and part beach cleanup. In just an hour, we picked up an incredible 90 pounds of trash. But the real kicker is that the same beach is cleaned every week, so everything we collected today had accumulated in just one week. Talk about mass consumerism.

 

In the afternoon, we tackled the much-awaited “mangroves of death.” Prepared by horror stories of mosquito clouds in years past, we were ready to sprint through the mangroves, snorkel and all. But our mangrove run turned into a leisurely stroll, as we encountered a total of zero bugs. A classic case of the professor that cried mosquito. 

 

After our safe passage, we said a tearful goodbye to our quadrats with one last coral experiment. We conducted our study on the back reef just beyond the island’s shoreline, where I saw much fewer herbivorous fish than on the patch reefs inside the atoll. The corals in this area seemed much more spread out and covered less area, which might explain the smaller number of fish.

 

To wrap up, we did our first night snorkel today. The reef is a whole other world at night; instead of seeing brightly colored parrotfish and small damselfish darting among the corals, I found a whole slew of other creatures. Some notable sightings included several huge spiny lobsters, a Nassau grouper, a yellow stingray, and several Caribbean reef squid. However, I did also find what looked like a blue tang surgeonfish (Acanthurus coeruleus); it had the characteristic spine on its caudal fin, but also had thick, vertical white stripes over its blue coloring.

 

To summarize, this is what I learned today: the ocean is filled with our trash; don’t use Styrofoam; and the reef is pretty damn cool in the dark.

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Marine Debris Cleanup + Night Snorkel

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Happy Sunday everyone! We just got back from an exciting night snorkel out on the patch reef. It was exhilarating to see how different the patch reef looked at night compared to how it looked when we had gone out during the day. While we were there tonight, I identified a tiger tail sea cucumber (Holothuria thomasi) hidden under some large mound corals. Though only about a foot and a half of it was visible, I could tell there was more of its body going under the corals. I also identified a couple donkey dung sea cucumbers (Holothuria mexicana) by the sandy areas near the bases of some large coral colonies and a red heart urchin (Meoma ventricosa) buried among the sand.

A red heart urchin (Meoma ventricosa) buried among the sand
A red heart urchin (Meoma ventricosa) buried among the sand

Going back to the beginning of our day, we spent the morning cleaning up marine debris along the windward side of Middle Caye and analyzing the types of debris that we found. Interestingly enough, we found very few plastic bags, lots of children’s toys, and equal trash bags full of Styrofoam and plastic (although plastic made up 50% of our collected debris by weight). Among the fourteen of us, we collected about 91 pounds of debris in an hour. That sounds like a lot, but there was still so much out there that we weren’t able to pick up.

Marine debris
Marine debris collected from the windward side of Middle Caye

It astounds me that the amount of debris that we collected had accumulated in a week (the people here at Glover’s do weekly clean-ups) and that so much of it travels here due to the Gulf of Honduras circulation patterns. With that said, I think we all came away from the experience with higher expectations for ourselves to try to do our part in terms of recycling and using more sustainable products. It was definitely an eye-opening experience and was especially interesting for me since I had just given my lecture on marine debris the night before. Anyway, that’s all for now everyone! I’m going to try to catch the sunrise tomorrow. 🙂

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